The Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, in an attempt to determine the safest, most effective and responsible means of opening school buildings and school (district) facilities under the current state directives and mandates, CDC recommendations, ASAA policies, and social distancing standards, continues working with multiple state, federal, and local organizations and agencies toward an eventual opening of KPBSD facilities.
Peninsula Sports offers a four-part series on the efforts of the KPBSD and the directives established through cooperation with numerous contributors.
Part Three: District Opening of District Operated Swimming Pools
KPBSD Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones is heading the KPBSD’s efforts to safely re-open school facilities for public and school use for the summer of 2020 and in preparation of the 2020 school year.
The district will follow CDC guidelines and state recommendations in determining the proper ways and means for re-opening pool facilities including guidelines formulated in Alaska Phase 3 & 4 Attachment P.
Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones…
“KPBSD is in the process of trying to re-open our facilities for use, but we’ve got to look at it within all of the requirements and guidelines that are put on us at this point in time. What we are looking at right are are the Center for Disease Control & Prevention have issued some considerations for youth sports with guiding principles; basically those guiding principles talk about the risk of COVID-19 spread.”
Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones…
“The pools are an interesting one because in Anchorage where they say the pools in Anchorage are open, the pools are run by the city of Anchorage and not run by the school district. So right now, all of the pools that are open are stand-alone pools that are not associated with the district and the city is operating them.
Attachment P addresses reopening guidelines including: social distancing, hygiene protocols, staffing and cleaning & disinfecting.
Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones…
“We are looking at opening some of our pools, it’s a process though because they’ve been shutdown. So you have to fill them back with water, you have to get the chemicals right. You got to get our staff trained on the new requirements for the COVID-19 now we’ll do that and that takes time. So for the pools, I think it’s going to be the first part of July we’ll have pools open.”
According to Attachment P: Social distancing best practice is a minimum of six feet with people working on out of the pool wearing cloth face coverings.
Assistant Superintendent Dave Jones…
“It’s interesting when you talk about pools because the guidelines when we look at them right now, with the distancing requirements in the pools it’s going to take us four people to open the pool and we”l be able to allow three people to swim.
Attachment P Swimming Pools: Click Here